London Overground

On 11^th January my usual train was cancelled, due to a train broken down on the line. As a result I was unable to use my ticket on the local bus service as they only accept cash.
Today I received a voucher for the amount of the bus fare.
Well done to London Overground for dealing with this matter promptly.
Chris Lennon (Watford)

I like the London Overground! I tend to take it from Watford High street. If I need to get to Watford junction it’s only one stop away, and help me easily connect the London Midland line which takes me into London in 20 mins.
The delays I’ve experience have been a few minutes, so not too bad.
From Watford High Street it takes 45mins to get to Euston, but I find the journey pleasant and I like the fact it’s not a noisy train while running. When the weather is hot the air conditioning is nice and cool, when it cold the heating is great.
I like the fact the train spacious and has flip up chairs where you can put bicycles and prams or even luggage.
If you are having a night out in London it’s nice to know on Fridays you can get the last train leaving at 1am and Saturdays at 2am from Euston, which has been useful to me on many occasions. Obviously you are going to get people who had a little too much to drink so it’s not pleasent, but as long as I’m not getting a Nightbus home it’s all good!

So here i am, living in a new area of london close to an overground station. the plus side of this line is that I have one! Easy access to shoreditch and highbury & islington. But that’s pretty much the only stop i’ll use. Outside of that, where else will I go on this line?
It’s frequency is about as often as the old North London line which is now a part of this network. The line would be great… if more frequent. once every 15 minutes isn’t good enough for me, or reliable enough for me to use it on a daily basis.
Sometimes you get lucky, and one is minutes from the time you stood there, and sometimes your unlucky waiting 15 minutes. Annoyed when that happens. You definetly have to plan your trip when using this line from New Cross.
So plus… its an option for my travel, minus… you may have to wait!

I am very happy with the East London line from Dalston Junction towards SE London and the Overground from Dalston Kingland towards Richmond. It’s clean, spacious, never too busy and goes through all the hot spots of East London. and also makes getting to Camden extremely quick! Now it only takes me 15mins to get from dalston to Canada Water, previously it took around 40mins so yay!!!

I used to love you overground, when you was just plain British Rail, and we had something going on. Remember when you had nice seats so you didn’t have dead bums. and Orange with Gray. now your just a Bendy-​Bus on Rails. I don’t mind that you are always late, but you don’t need to be so cold. I miss the Silverlink. I knew it was futile, but a man can dream can’t he.
Yeah you have your uses but I just don’t know if I can even look at you. So I think it would be appropriate if we didn’t see each other any more, I’ve met someone else, you don’t know her. She’s called Jubilee and takes me to the roughly the same places you did, just a little hotter, and she’s a bit weird, but I like that in a train

Since the the Overground was taken over by London transport it’s improved hugely. Stations spruced up and cleaned, new much better trains with A/​C and better service. The new East London connection opened ahead of schedule this year and is extremely convenient for those trendoid areas in east London with frequent service and big, seemingly empty new stations.
Frequency of service west to Richmond and Clapham junction needs to be increased to every 5 — 10 mins like the east London section however.

Clean and since it IS the Overground, sunny. Better than the tube. It sort of overlays the Tube, but it doesnt match up to it well with only a handful of stations that are also Underground.
The trains I rode were clean and efficient. I’ve been on the Paris RER and the Munich S-​Bahn and some of the Swiss intra-​city lines, this felt exactly like that. But without the efficiency and timeliness of the other lines.
I’ve been in the London area for a year and a half. I’ve only had the occasion to take the Overground once. It just doesn’t go where I need it to go.

After using London Overground for seven years, this is what I’ve discovered:
The good:
–Most trains have carriages for bikes, which is helpful;
–It’s now possible to use Oyster Pay as You Go cards — wahey!
The bad:
–It can’t hack even the slightest amount of rain, immediately incurring delays and even cancellations. In a famously wet country like the UK, that’s a big problem;
–In the tube-​free area of South East London it can be horribly unreliable, with delays routine. Reasons include all kinds of foot-​stomping, gasket-​blowing causes: «a problem with a train» (don’t you friggin’ maintain them?), absent drivers and «we’re being held at a red signal. I don’t know why. Hopefully we’ll be on the move shortly» (Oh. Thanks.);
–Coverage of London is somewhat patchy, with zone location not necessarily being a reliable guide to how long it’ll take you to reach the centre e.g. in some places it can be quicker to go from Zone 4 to the centre than Zone 2 because the routes are better;
–As TfL appear to be all to aware of given their plans for Crossrail, it can be tortuous getting from east London to west London.
The so-​so:
–Communication. Sometimes it’s good, allowing you to make alternative plans or get in a grovelling text to your boss or friend, sometimes it’s awful.
Overall, for me the bads outweigh the goods and I now only very rarely rely on it to get me anywhere. Testament to London Overground’s efforts is that I now use a bike to get anywhere in Zones 1 – 3 as it tends to be far more reliable and quicker. Given the difference in horsepower, congestion, number of traffic lights and costs, I’d say that’s pretty embarrassing for London Overground.

The Highbury & Islington link to Dalston Junction is now open. Hooray!
So all you Highbury kids who need to get to Canary Wharf but want to avoid the Northern Line from Angel you can jump on a train at H&I that will take you to Canada Water for an, apparently, easy interchange to the jubilee line. It’ll take less than 30 mins. And for those of you who don’t, you can just use it to come to Broadway market on a Saturday.
Dalston Junction to Highbury and Islington takes 6 mins. Beat that 277!
(still doesn’t really go anywhere that useful for me though, an interchange with the central line would have been a good idea tfl but I suppose logistics etc)

I rode the new East London line this weekend and thought that it was pretty good. I was able to step right off the tube and jump on a train. So I didn’t have to worry about waiting for too long. I also was treated to some pretty amazing views of East London on my trip from Whitechapel to Dalston. I am seriously contemplating riding this line again with my camera in tow. The views of East London are THAT good.

Weeehooooooo!!!
I just took a seat on the fast, clean, sparkly new overground from Shoreditch High Street to Dalston Junction. And although the upholstery made me feel like I was taking a train straight back to 1972, all other reports are two orange lined thumbs up.
I still could use more frequent trains. And it would be nice if I didn’t feel like I was navigating my way through a depressing concrete maze of gloom at each station. But for a much needed service a month early? That’s 4-​stars right thurrr.

Trying to commute from SW London to Dalston several times a week has left me dependent on the Overground. It’s not the most efficient public transit system on earth, to be sure, but I can usually get a seat for the morning commute. Yes, it’s the same amount of time that it would take me on the underground, but I’d have to transfer 3 times and fight my way towards a pocket of fresh air if I took the district line to the central line to the bus. The Overground is all-​together more civilised, and makes the long shlep across London somehow more tolerable.

My overground station only runs three times an hour. tiny trains. slow as molasses… and what is the equivalent of the walk it would take me to get to a tube station once i have to transfer and re-​tap back in at Euston…
Not impressed! (the staff at the station were very nice though, but that doesn’t really help my journey time)

yup, this hopelessly decrepit old train line was recently brought under Transport for London’s control (TfL). i never used it before that but i suspect it was even worse then. The then Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone tried to win the public vote by bringing it under TfL (which meant staff at all stations, cctv, cleaners etc.)
I have to say though the idea of a circular route beats the living daylights outta radial routes where you have to go into central London before you head back out to your peripheral destination.
Im not sure but i think there will be a replacement of the trains with new ones, anyone got any info on that?
Ill give it three stars, despite the plentiful downsides the staff do make a point of keeping the service to the timetable!

Right LO, I have some quetsions…
Why do you only have 2 services an hour around east London on Sunday?
Why do you not let me top up my Oyster at your silly machines?
Why do you not have staff at over 50% of your stations? What happen if something goes wrong?!
Why are your little windows that open so small and face the wrong way so NO breeze manages to get into the carriage during hot days?
Why are your tickets more expensive than the tube?
What’s with the short trains even during rush hour?
What’s with changing the final destination of the train without actually telling everyone else on it?
Please get back to me when you can, I know you’re busy, doing what, god only knows!!!

The London Overground currently runs from Richmond to Stratford, Clapham Junction to Willesden Junction, Gospel Oak to Barking and Watford Junction to Euston.
I mainly jump on at Hackney Wick as it takes just 15 minutes to get to Highbury and Islington where I can get the Victoria line to central London.
It is frequent enough, trains run every ten minutes or so but a lot of trains get cancelled so it’s not really the most reliable mode of transport.
It’s not really advisable to catch this train at rush hour as I foolishly did once only to be squashed between a 6 foot tall man and a girl with a rug sack which was hell. I kept thinking the doors were going to open and we would all fall out.

Like most Londoners I get up in the morning and head off to work and complain about the cramped tubes and slow buses. On the way home in rush hour I complain about the very same things. Living in Kentish Town, North West London I assumed tubes and buses were the easiest way to get from A to B.
It came as a pleasant surprise when wandering down Camden Road, something in my inquisitive mind propelled me into Camden Road over ground station. I already knew there was an over ground station in Kentish Town not two minutes away from my home, but I never thought to look where the line went.
To my joyous surprise, the line can get me to university and work within fifteen minutes. It in fact services SW, NW and NE London pretty well. I got on at Camden Road Friday evening at 5.30pm and although busy, I didn’t have my nose squashed into someone’s armpit.
Ah the joys of being inquisitive. Check out the over ground it may save you time and your nerves.